Thursday, December 6, 2018

and on the second Fossil of the day ceremony of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP24 meeting in Katowice, Poland....

No surprise here to find our old blocking friend Saudi Arabia reappearing, and on behalf of the Arab group, no less, for trying to kill ambition and prevent more transparency.

And a late runner has entered the competition. Oh Brazil, how could you? It seems the new President has plans for the Amazon rainforest that involve deforrestation and will also drive massive impacts on indigenous people of the Amazon. Seriously not good for climate or people.

"The birthplace of the UN #climate convention, once celebrated by its spectacular strides in reducing deforestation and mitigation global warming, has become the laughing stock of negotiators in Katowice", @CANIntl on Brazil #FossilOfTheDay#JairBolsonaro

It’s great to be consistent – reliable is good, right? Seems old habits die hard, especially if your allies keep the door open for you ...

So, given that we are at COP 24, it is no shock that there are some offenders that keep on coming back. This Fossil award is for the most consistent, insistent and persistent voice undermining ambition in the negotiations so far this week – Saudi Arabia. Yesterday, on behalf of the Arab Group, was an intervention that summarized their overall approach.

In the session on the Global Stocktake, Saudi Arabia, speaking for the Arab Group, called for deletion of the term “ambition mechanism” in the preamble to the Global Stocktake text on the grounds that it pre-judges the outcome of the GST. The IPCC SR 1.5 and the entire Paris Agreement makes it clear that we need much more climate ambition if we are to meet the agreement’s long-term objectives.

Saudi efforts to undermine ambition don’t stop there. Saudi Arabia (speaking for like-minded developing countries or LMDCs for those not in the know) opposes agreement on any new information for NDCs to promote Clarity, Transparency and Understanding, and supports a “no text” outcome. Saudi Arabia, the LMDC and Arab groups repeatedly call for ratification of Doha Amendments, despite Saudi Arabia itself having neglected to ratify.

We could go on, but it is more than clear that Saudi Arabia is up to its old tricks, and inventing some new ones, in building alliances and strategies to undermine ambition and keeping warming to 1.5C. Welcome back to the leaderboard Saudi Arabia!

Brazil

Whatever happened to you, Brazil?

The birthplace of the UN climate convention, once celebrated by its spectacular strides in reducing deforestation and mitigating global warming, has become the laughing stock of negotiators in Katowice.

Just ten days before COP 24, Brazil’s president-elect, army captain, Jair Bolsonaro, called off the offer to host COP 25 next year, because he read on WhatsApp that the Paris Agreement is a threat to Brazil’s sovereignty. Um, yeah, that seems legit.

And If you think that’s a shame, consider for a minute Brazil’s appointed chancellor, Ernesto Araújo, a man whose role model is Donald Trump and who wrote that climate change is part of a Marxist plot to transfer power to China. Somebody please warn Angela Merkel!

Bolsonaro’s plans for the Amazon rainforest, however, are no laughing matter. He has promised to end deforestation control, open up indigenous lands for big business, kill environmental licensing and even shut down the Environment ministry. Environmental criminals are listening closely: between August and November, deforestation rates went up 32%, and a recent study has estimates that it might reach 25 thousand square kilometers a year, with resulting emissions of 3 BILLION tons of carbon dioxide. That’s tchau to 1.5 degrees.

But first and foremost, Bolsonaro’s forest madness is endangering his own people. The Amazon exports humidity that feeds rains in the southern parts of the country, where people live, and food is produced and even recently half of Brazilian cities suffered critical water stress in the last four years.

We’re sorry Brazilians, your being embarrassed, Bolsonaro is endangering your people and threatening the fate of the whole planet – is anything more deserving of a Fossil?

About CAN: The Climate Action Network (CAN) is a worldwide network of over 1300 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in more than 120 working to promote government and individual action to limit human induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels. www.climatenetwork.org

About Fossil: The Fossil of the Day awards were first presented at the climate talks in 1999, in Bonn, initiated by the German NGO Forum. During United Nations climate change negotiations (www.unfccc.int), members of the Climate Action Network (CAN), vote for countries judged to have done their 'best' to block progress in the negotiations or in the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

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Time to leap out of the slowly boiling pot of earth's warming climate
into action on climate mitigation and adaption.
I don't want my children to ask why I didn't act after reading the
scientific reports of climate risks. I write on the
effects of human induced climate change, sea level rise, ocean
acidification, biodiversity loss, environmental and social impacts of
global warming, and climate protests from a Melbourne Citizen
Journalist.

A member of environmental NGOs and community groups for 30 years in Australia, currently living in Melbourne. I have been a Citizen journalist for the Indymedia network in Australia and worldwide from 2000, as an editor and contributor with Australia Indymedia and the global features collective. Since 2013 I have contributed many stories to Margot Kingston's citizen journalism website: nofibs.com.au. (See my article archive) I also post photoessays to Flickr and videos to Youtube and edit wikipedia as user Tirin. My website is takver.com where I can be contacted through the feedback form, the most reliable way to contact me. I can also be contacted through facebook and on twitter as @takvera.